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Run, don't get breathless
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Yoga offers a variety of breathing programmes for runners
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PHOTOS: K. V. SRINIVASAN
FOCUS ON SPINE AND STAMINA 1. Prasarita Pada: Concave back, sternum stretch, stamina builder
Run — `to move quickly, lifting one foot before placing the other on the ground.'
2. Holy Cross: For the hips, lower back and legs
Definitionally true, but how dull and drab! One has to `run' away from dictionaries to discover the pleasure of running, to understand just how far civilisation has helped humankind lift an activity that must have originally been tried out, by accident, presumably in early man's efforts to escape danger.
3. Sitali: Coolant, also helps ward off thirst
Today, as a sport, running covers so wide a spectrum that it calls for different training methods, depending on the area of specialisation.
Yoga would look at middle to long distance running quite differently from how it would approach the sprint. Distance implies endurance beyond the average and fitness translates into leg and spine strength. Spine and stamina, then, emerge as the distance runner's mantras! And nothing short of the best is available in yoga, where plenty is never an embarrassment!
For the purpose at hand, the yoga programme would emphasise a lot of forward bends, both standing and seated. Even here, how one gets into the final position is as important as the end pose itself, and the stay in it. For example, in the BKS system, the mid-stage is considered important: the `concave back' position, also called the `sternum stretch', helps improve stamina.
4. Ujjayee: On pillow props, fantastic restorative
In yoga, a typical pose is held for some time. Obviously, the breath flows all the time. Now, between the highest reach of the inhale and the commencement of the exhale, there is a natural pause; similarly, from the vanishing point of the exhale and the point in time when the fresh inhale enters the system, there is another such pause. Intelligent increases in these, deliberately introduced, make for the whole science of Pranayama. In my years of teaching, I have experimented (of course, only with suitable candidate) with prolonging the `empty state of lungs', even in asana practice. This also serves as a stamina-builder. Breath-play, nevertheless, is part of pranayama; and the connection with athletics in general and running in particular, is immediate. In fact, one of the coaches of the then Soviet running team said in an interview in the 1980s that the team regularly practised fractional inhalation — a great pranayama technique, effective as a stamina-booster.
There is a tremendous variety in breath programmes and they should be learned only from teachers, masters worthy of the label. But simple deep breathing, done reclining on pillow-props, is entirely risk-free and extremely beneficial.
After a gruelling run, this type of breathing is relaxing and wonderfully recuperative.
5. Viparita Karani: for total relaxation
In a rather unusual event many years ago, a camel was raced against a thoroughbred across 100 km of desert land. The horse, foam flecked and clearly at the end of its powers, just about finished the race, and died. The camel, unflattering in appearance and ungainly in gait, won comfortably; what was more, after drinking some water and a short rest, looked good enough for another canter!
Yoga, system non pareil, will surely help `breed' the camel type of distance runner.
NANDANANDANAN
(The writer is a city-based yoga consultant)
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